Some analysts have attributed the noticeable drop in the Petroleum product supply across the country to lessened activities of smuggling activities mostly in borderline communities sequel to the federal government’s border closure enforcements.
Adeola Adenikinju,a Professor of Energy Economics at the University of Ibadan told BusinessDay that giving the sustained drop overtime of the supplied product,increased activities of joint border patrol could have lessened the activities of smugglers in border town communities.
Austin Onuoha,an Oil sector governance expert told BusinessDay that the drop could be linked to less activities of smugglers in the border town communities while also calling on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to prioritise deregulation of the sector this year.
It would be noted that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has on Thursday revealed it supplied 1.16 billion litres of petrol in October translating to 37.30 million litres per day.
This figure represents a drop of 570 million litres from the 1.76 billion litres at 55.74 million litres per day distributed in July 2019.
The corporation said it recorded a trading surplus of N13.23 billion in October 2019, a 54% increase from the N8.59 billion posted in September.
Samson Makoji, who confirmed the development in a statement informed that there were 35 vandalised pipeline points in the month under review compared to 186 vandalised points in September.
“Out of the vandalized points, eight failed to be welded, while only one pipeline was ruptured, with Ibadan-Ilorin axis accounting for 34% of the breaks, while ATC-Mosimi and other routes accounted for 23% and 43% respectively,” the statement read.
“To underline the increasing fortunes of the corporation in recent times, the September 2019 trading surplus of ₦8.59billion, in turn, indicated a significant increase of 65% compared to the ₦5.20 billion surplus posted in August 2019, even as that beat the ₦4.26billion surplus posted in July 2019, reflecting an increase of 22%.”
According to the 51st edition of the monthly financial and operations report, the total crude oil and gas export was worth $483.25 million in October 2019.
A breakdown showed that crude oil export sales contributed $396.94million (82.14 per cent) of the dollar transactions while export gas sales for the month amounted to $86.32 million.
Crude oil and gas worth the October 2018 to October 2019 crude oil and Gas transactions indicated that crude oil & gas worth $5.49 billion was exported.
Recall, in November, the federal government, through the Nigeria Customs Service, directed that petroleum products should not be supplied to fuel stations within 20km of the borders.
The action, which is ongoing, is being carried out under the Operation Swift Response which is supervising the land border closure to check smuggling activities.
HARRISON EDEH, ABUJA
